Ethics, law, and pain management as a patient right

Abstract

Ethical and legal considerations in pain management typically relate to 2 issues. The first refers to pain management as a human right. The second involves the nature of the patient-physician relationship as it relates to pain management. Although pain physicians often like to think of pain management as a human right, it remains difficult to support this position as a point of law or as a matter of ethics. Medical organizations generally do not define pain management as a specific duty of the physician, apart from the provision of competent medical care. To date, neither law nor ethics creates a duty of care outside of the traditional patient-physician relationship. Absent a universal duty, no universal right exists. Pursuing pain management as a fundamental human right, although laudable, may place the power of the government in the middle of the patient-physician relationship. Despite apparent altruistic motives, attempts to define pain management as a basic human right could have unintended consequences, such as nationalization of medicine to ensure provision of pain management for all patients.